In Susan Wolf’s article “The Meaning of Lives” she argues a meaningful life is engaged in positive projects to some degree of success. She also believes that the pursuits with meaning have an objective value that connects with the rest humanity. Susan Wolf’s did not write about her thoughts on the concept of plugging oneself into an experience machine like described by Christopher Grau in “Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and the Experience Machine”, but her argument for what gives meaning to a life makes it clear that she would argue someone should choose to not plug in. The reason a person would choose to plug into an experience machine is because they could live out all of their fantasies and avoid all the discomfort experienced in real life. But
"Through the Tunnel" by Doris Lessing illustrates the journey of a young boy named Jerry trying to swim through a tunnel in an ocean rock. In the beginning, Jerry is starting an oceanside vacation with his mother, when he sees the rocky bay, he's immediately intrigued, and the next day he asks his mother if he could go by the rocks. When he gets there, he sees foreign boys swimming around by the rocks. As he dives with them, he notices that they were swimming through an underwater tunnel, and he's immediately determined to do that himself. So, he asks his mother for goggles, and trains his breath vigorously. After hard work and many nose bleeds, he finally does it, and is overrun by positivity after accomplishing the task. This short story gives great messages about determination.
Before reading the book Monster by Walter Dean Myers, I disagreed with the statement “Lying to save yourself from being convicted of a crime is an okay thing do.” Reading this book has made me slightly change my mind.
This essay is on The Allegory of the Cave, Book VII of The Republic by Plato. This paper is written to explain what the allegory, defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one, or a story with two levels of meaning” is as construed by Plato. This paper will 1) Present that the allegory presented in this story is a number of Plato 's key philosophical postulations 2) The strategy he used to explain his philosophical views in The Allegory of the Cave. 3) How do his views affect and or apply to reality, education and media in our society today.
In his 1995 essay “The Trouble with Wilderness,” William Cronon declares that “the time has come to rethink wilderness” (69). From the practice of agriculture to masculine frontier fantasies, Cronon argues that Americans have historically defined wilderness as an “island,” separate from their polluted urban industrial homes (69). He traces the idea of wilderness throughout American history, asserting that the idea of untouched, pristine wilderness is a harmful fantasy. By idealizing wilderness from a distance, he argues that people justify the destruction of less sublime landscapes and aggravate environmental conflict.
After reading the short story,“The RockPile”, by James Baldwin, it is found that a religious family lives in Harlem, and the father of the family enforces unfair penalties on his son John.
Heavily influenced by Max Weber, Peter Berger was interested in finding the meaning of social structures. This theme is apparent throughout his book The Sacred Canopy (1967), in which he drew on the sociology of knowledge to explain the sociological roots of religious beliefs. His main goal is to convince readers that religion is a historical product, it is created by us, yet also has the power to govern us.
Aldous Huxley’s compelling futuristic novel, Brave New World, takes place in an elaborately constructed society whose citizens have their intellect highly conditioned from birth to be entirely “jolly” [as stated in the text] throughout life merely through superficial fulfillment that the government is able to provide. However, the perpetually gleeful yet blind citizens are stripped of their dignity, compassion, values and morals-ultimately losing their human emotions without the realization that they’ve lost such an important aspect in life. When problems arise, the drug soma is a quick ‘solution’ to the distress it brings. An outcast to the new society, Bernard Marx struggles through his life, seeking to understand why his peer’s,
Things were really bad in 1920, when the National Prohibition Act was passed. The act made it illegal to drink, sell, or buy alcohol. This really enraged people, causing a huge crime surge. The law was passed to decrease crime, but the opposite happened. Alcohol was still being sold, made, and drunk. This surge created gangsters that ruled the cities. Those gangsters became richer and richer, more powerful and selfish. Some of the biggest gangsters didn’t still rule the streets, they ruled in jail too. They bribed guards, politician, and even police. On the other hand, they killed them too. While people lived in complete fear. Super- gangsters ruled everything, so someone thought it was time to change all that. All this caused the creation
Education liberates us from ignorance. Without education we depend on others to guide us, and allow them to manipulate our ideals so we are unable to tell the difference between ideas and reality. In "Allegory of the Cave" by Plato, he emphasizes the importance of education by first depicting the lack of it on a group of imprisoned human beings. One escapes and is exposed to a new perspective on life. In comparison to Malcolm X 's "Learning to Read" excerpt from his autobiography, Malcolm speaks on self education and it 's positive impact on his life. Education is proven by both texts to be ultimately essential in our lives.
In his investigative, nonfiction book, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer implies that even though most adolescents who participate in high-risk activities end up with serious consequences, occasionally, those activities are rewarding. This is explained throughout Krakauer’s book, showing Christopher McCandless’ journey across North America; John Waterman’s ascent of Mount Denali, and his mental unwinding; Gene Rosellini’s attempt to survive off the land; Carl McCunn’s adventure in the wilderness, Everett Ruess’s journey at the Davis Gulch; and also by describing Krakauer’s own adventure in Alaska (Krakauer). Additionally, possible causes of this are described in Maia Szalavitz’s article, Why the Teen Brain Is Drawn to Risk”.
From younger age, we have been taught to behave in a certain way in order to fit in. When we grow up, our lives get automatically filled with growing amounts of responsibilities and expectations that we need to fulfill. It is a tough world to live in; its pressure and rules can lead so many people to run away from it seeking a peace of their mind. But where should we run to? The wilderness, as being the only alternative to the human world, seems to be an ideal place to take a vacation from all of the distractions of modernity, where all human problems seem to fade and become meaningless. In this essay I am going to examine stories of two people - Chris MacCandless and Timothy Treadwell, who for their own reasons decided to leave their homes
When on his dangerous climb, Krakauer is truly convinced that this experience will change his life. Krakauer creates a narrative parallel between himself and Chris. Throughout the book, Krakauer has kept to a journalist point of view. In this chapter, he slightly abandons that perspective and is more up front with his own personal experiences. Because of his sharing of his own into the wild experience, the reader can grow more sympathy towards McCandless and the actions that he
In 1961, Stanley Milgram (1963) carried out one of the most famous experiments in social psychology. He wanted to examine the conflict between a person’s obedience to authority and their personal conscience. This experiment was conducted one year after the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Eichmann, along with most of those accused at the Nuremberg War Criminal trials, often based their defense on ”obedience”. The justification for their atrocious actions was that they were simply following orders from their superiors.
Psychological Research can range from being simple to very complex. Psychological research deals with the research that psychologist have conducted to analyze the behavior of individuals. When conducting these researches there are special guidelines which need to be taken. If the researcher fails to meet these guidelines the research may be classified as unethical.